Thursday, May 2, 2013

Fret Not

“Rest in the Lord, and wait
patiently for Him…do not fret—it only causes harm.” Psalm 37:7a,8bNKJV

I
awoke the other morning with worry on my mind. To compound the problem I got
down on myself for worrying since I’m the “Come Rest guy.” In my weakness the
Holy Spirit prompted me from deep within to simply cry, “Help me Lord.”I didn’t feel much better, but then I sat
down and opened my heart to the Lord in my daily scripture reading plan and
found Psalm 37. The first three words were “Fret not yourself”. Wow, nailed by
the Lord with His all-knowing love right away. I just stopped, known and loved,
to thank Him.

He
now had my complete attention so I slowly went through the rest of Psalm 37
line by line letting Him speak to my heart and writing down His counsel to me
in my journal. In verses one, seven, and eight He gives three specific “fret
not’s”. Throughout the rest of the Psalm He lays out His perspective on our
sinful world and nine things He wants us to do with Him instead of fretting. The
more I spend my time doing these nine with Him, the Holy Spirit is welling up
inside me releasing His perfect love casting out all my fear. Worry is a choice
to dwell in fear. Faith is a choice to dwell with Jesus. I can see right now
that doing these nine things I won’t have time to dwell in fear, I will be too
busy dwelling with Him!

Just
a few days into this, I am already more at rest in Him and more fruitful as I’m
focusing on His Psalm 37 counsel. One burden has already been lifted off my
shoulders. He has been clear with me that I’m not the “come rest guy”—He is. He
desires that my only identity is being His beloved child covered by His blood. His
beloved imperfect child who gets to help others come rest in His perfect love.

If
you are worrying about something, He wants to meet with you in Psalm 37 for a
conversation and adjustments. I will have more to say to you as I practice His
counsel in Psalm 37. For now, I invite you to open your heart to Him in Psalm
37. I’m not going to tell you the nine things. Come to Him. Go on a treasure hunt with Him. Go learn from Him the three “fret not’s” and
nine ways He wants you to follow Him to leave fretting behind.

Come
rest from fear. Stop trying to carry the world on your shoulders. Start letting
Him carry you on His. Learn from Him to be empty of fear and full of Him; so
you can help others do the same. Fret
not.